


Forget

by reclusiveq



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:30:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2009268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclusiveq/pseuds/reclusiveq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very short introspective ficlet in which James Buchanan Barnes wants to forget.</p><p>Inspired a bit by the song Hero of War by Rise Against.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget

James Buchanan Barnes wanted to forget. He was a long way from the front lines now. A long way from sitting in the mud, drinking hot soup from a tin cup, huddling with his rifle always close at hand, the rancid smell of blood and death and sick clinging to his nose and throat. He wanted to forget the terrible screams of the men he killed, as he tried and failed to convince himself that they deserved to die for being Nazis. He tried not to think about how some of them may have been like him, forced into a fight they wanted no part of. He wanted to forget the dark brown eyes looking up at him and pleading for his life before James shot him.

James Buchanan Barnes wanted to forget. Long term, he just wanted to forget everything about the war. He'd be happy if he never had to pull a trigger again in his life. He wanted to forget about the prison camp and the long cold days of starvation and labour, forced to carry stone and wood from one spot to another so the Nazis could use it to fight their own. He would have refused, but they had threatened, not him, both those under his command. He remembered the bright blue eyes of a boy not much younger than himself, a gun placed to his head, and the command that if anyone tried to rebel, that boy and others like him would be killed while they watched.

James Buchanan Barnes wanted to forget. There were no labs here, in this bar. He wanted to forget the night they came for him. Sick and shivering against imagined cold, he was dragged to an even colder room. He remembered the fear of torture, the fear he wouldn't be able to resist. He wanted to forget the sight of a sharp needle filled with something he couldn't identify and the pain that shot through his body as they forced it into his blood. He wanted to forget the screams that echoed through the room, his own screams, and the feeling of being tied down, unable to escape and knowing that if he could, he just might leave all his men behind.

James Buchanan Barnes wanted to forget... but he couldn't. In that entire time, there had been only one ray of light: when Steve had shown up like an angel from heaven. Bucky thought maybe he had died. Mom had always talked about guardian angels. Maybe this was his own personal guardian angel. But it wasn't. It was Steve. His Steve, but not his Steve. And all Bucky could feel at that moment was unadulterated love. James Buchanan Barnes wanted to forget that most of all. Because at that moment, everything became a hundred times more painful. As he looked his new Steve over, everything became confusion, pain, jealousy, and love, and James Buchanan Barnes wasn't sure he could control those emotions.

And now, sitting in this bar, downing a final shot of whiskey, James Buchanan Barnes knew his feelings for Steve and understood they were all one-sided. That was what he really wanted to forget. Steve loved Peggy. And Bucky would never be able to voice his own feelings for Steve. It was unheard of, and after the trauma of the war, he would likely be deemed crazy. So he wanted to forget all of it and drink himself into oblivion. But it hadn't worked. So James Buchanan Barnes went home, and dreamed, and remembered.


End file.
